The Sigla Blog

I love that quote from William Zinsser. It sums up in a way, a craft that is very hard to define. I think about writing - short stories, a novel, poems - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but still it doesn’t quash my damned procrastination. Sometimes I excuse this by telling myself that creative writing for a journalist is like a busman’s holiday. (Another expression that could easily have made it on to my ‘Seven things I say the most’ in that Seven Things meme). This theory gets blown out of the water when you look at the amount of writers who worked as journalists - Charles Dickens, Anthony Burgess, George Orwell.

Last year, I interviewed two writers who had both worked as journalists and decided to ask their opinion on it. Justin Hill, has worked as a travel writer and was adamant that the worst career for a writer is journalism. His advice was that I should “go off and work in Tesco for a year” to deprogramme myself from writing journalistically. Some time after that, I spoke to John Connolly, who wrote for The Irish Times for five years. He had a completely different take on it, pointing out that all the experience of self-editing is invaluable to a writer. John Banville, who was sub-editor also thinks a journalism background is a help, not a hindrance. All those theories are interesting but in truth, sooner or later I was going to have to confront my avoidance approach to creative writing.

Another journalist I know wrote a play that won an award earlier this year. She told me she approaches creative writing the same way she approaches journalism -by setting deadlines to have things finished by. As I’m determined to kickstart my writing again, I’ve done two things in the last couple of days. One was contribute to That Girl’s writing project 47 Hours Part Deux (I’ve written part six in the saga so start at the beginning). The second, was to get involved in a writer’s group. Our first meeting was last night and I’ve come away from it inspired and with more determination to focus on my actually finishing some stories.

Sitting on my bookshelves is a gorgeous notebook given to me by a friend. In itself, it’s a thing of beauty. The cover is red, with oriental flowers on it and yet it sits there, empty and parched of words. After feeling tremendously guilt about neglecting this wonderful notebook, I confessed to my friend. Her response, was simple and possibly the most encouraging thing anyone has ever said to me about writing.

“Don’t worry, the words will come”.

Finally, I’m starting to believe that they will.